The Garden

"Filmmaker Scott Hamilton Kennedy brilliantly captures, in a series of explosive and wrenching turns of events, the ways greedy developers, inept politicians, and self-serving "community" leaders can run roughshod over the lives of working-class families fighting to save the largest urban farm in America: a 14-acre oasis in South Central Los Angeles that was created in the wake of the 1992 LA riots." -- Container.

This story beats dramatization. As the struggle heats up, the camera looks equally on the city farmers’ gains, small and large, and their setbacks. The woman who faces the confrontation, the internal squabbles, the attacks, becomes one protagonist in this class struggle against the bizarre property owner.
When they begin to find the hidden story, secret deals, other community organizers hiding funds for public facilities and council approval of insufficiently documented proposals, I realized “that could be here.” Why is it so widespread and accepted ?
You know the outcome and dread it. This is LA, not Hollywood. The LA cops charge toward the onlookers, not waiting for them to start anything.
The return owner, beneficiary of public largesse twice, crows about his win and chides “those people”, who met his asking price. Listen to his voice-over, contorted racism and his shriveled echo of entitlement over the “ungrateful immigrants”.
As the full import sinks in, the overshot reveals that the land has returned to its previous disuse, a nuisance grounds for discarded. Nothing has been done with the property. Will the cycle repeat ?
Yet the brutal land scrape has a positive pay-off. First and second generation campesinos organized by this injustice find other land and supply the community markets.

Excellent film - a very moving (and frustrating) look at people fighting injustice. It also gives a great look at the struggle to try to hold a city accountable to their claim to be pro-open space, when it comes down to putting their money where their mouth is. Also brings up the question of rights for owners vs. users. I would definitely recommend this to anyone.